In this paper I focus on a recently discussed phenomenon illustrated by sentences containing predicates of taste: the phenomenon of " perspectival plurality " , whereby sentences containing two or more predicates of taste have readings according to which each predicate pertains to a different perspective. This phenomenon has been shown to be problematic for (at least certain versions of) relativism. My main aim is to further the discussion by showing that the phenomenon extends to other perspectival expressions than predicates (...) of taste and by proposing a general solution to the problem raised by it on behalf of the relativist. The core claim of the solution (" multiple indexing ") is that utterances of sentences containing perspectival expressions should be evaluated with respect to (possibly infinite) sequences of perspective parameters. (shrink)

The Introduction to "Non-Derogatory Uses of Slurs", special issue of Grazer Philosophische Studien.

ABSTRACT In this paper, I present data involving the use of the Romanian slur ‘țigan’, consideration of which leads to the postulation of a sui-generis, irreducible type of use of slurs. This type of use is potentially problematic for extant theories of slurs. In addition, together with other well-established uses, it shows that there is more variation in the use of slurs than previously acknowledged. I explain this variation by construing slurs as polysemous. To implement this idea, I appeal to (...) a rich-lexicon account of polysemy. I show how such a theory can be applied to slurs and discuss several important issues that arise. (shrink)

In this short paper I survey recent contextualist answers to the challenge from disagreement raised by contemporary relativists. After making the challenge vivid by means of a working example, I specify the notion of disagreement lying at the heart of the challenge. The answers are grouped in three categories, the first characterized by rejecting the intuition of disagreement in certain cases, the second by conceiving disagreement as a clash of non-cognitive attitudes and the third by relegating disagreement at the pragmatic (...) level. For each category I present several important variants and raise some (general) criticisms. The paper is meant to offer a quick introduction to the current contextualist literature on disagreement and thus a useful tool for further research. (shrink)

In the recent debate about the semantics of perspectival expressions, disagreement has played a crucial role. In a nutshell, what I call “the challenge from disagreement” is the objection that certain views on the market cannot account for the intuition of disagreement present in ordinary exchanges involving perspectival expressions like “Licorice is tasty./no, it’s not.” Various contextualist answers to this challenge have been proposed, and this has led to a proliferation of notions of disagreement. It is now accepted in the (...) debate that there are many notions of disagreement and that the search for a common, basic notion is misguided. In this paper I attempt to find such a basic notion underneath this diversity. The main aim of the paper is to motivate, forge and defend a notion of “minimal disagreement” that has beneficial effects for the debate over the semantics of perspectival expressions. (shrink)

In this entry, I tackle the phenomenon known as "faultless disagreement", considered by many authors to pose a challenge to the main views on the semantics of subjective expressions. I first present the phenomenon and the challenge, then review the main answers given by contextualist, absolutist and relativist approaches to the expressions in question. I end with signaling two issues that might shape future discussions about the role played by faultless disagreement in semantics.

In this paper, I engage with a recent contextualist account of gender terms proposed by Díaz-León, E. 2016. “Woman as a Politically Significant Term: A Solution to the Puzzle.” Hypatia 31 : 245–58. Díaz-León’s main aim is to improve both on previous contextualist and non-contextualist views and solve a certain puzzle for feminists. Central to this task is putting forward a view that allows trans women who did not undergo gender-affirming medical procedures to use the gender terms of their choice (...) to self-identify. My goal is to investigate Díaz-León’s proposal, point out several shortcomings of the view and discuss possible replies on her part. (shrink)

Many times, what we say proves to be wrong. It might turn out that what we took to be a comforting remark was, in fact, making things worse. Or that a joke was inappropriate. Or that yelling out loud was rude. More importantly for this paper, there are plenty of cases in which what we said turns out to be false: we spoke without paying attention, we were misinformed or tricked, or we made a reasoning mistake. -/- A particular instance (...) of this latter phenomenon is when someone changes their perspective and doesn't find their previous assertions true anymore. For example, imagine that you used to like licorice as a child, and that you went around saying things like "Licorice is tasty." But, growing up, you find licorice too strong and quite boring; your tastes have changed. While the taste of licorice itself has not changed, you are not going around anymore uttering "Licorice is tasty." In fact, in certain cases, you might even think that what you said in your childhood was wrong - at least in light of your present preferences. -/- Sometimes we "take back" the assertions we made when we realize they are no longer true. Such speech acts of taking back can be performed in various ways: more formally, as effected in a court of law or when an official speaks to the press, or more informally in our day-by-day interactions. These acts of taking back are known as retraction. Retraction is usually achieved by employing certain linguistic markers ('I was wrong', 'I was mistaken', 'I retract', "Scratch that' etc.) that signal that the retractor takes their previous speech act to be faulty in a certain way. -/- This phenomenon has formed the basis for a popular argument used by relativists about a variety of natural language expressions (predicates of taste, epistemic modals, moral and aesthetic claims etc.) in support of their view. Recently, several considerations (mostly from contextualists about the same expressions), both from the armchair and based on empirical studies, have been offered to undercut the support retraction was thought to provide for relativism. In this paper, I consider and re-evaluate that support in light of both types of considerations, showing that neither of them decisively undermines it. However, to survive the contextualist counterattack, the relativist needs to pay a price: that is, she will be forced to make some concessions or rethink certain claims. I show what I think those concessions should be and what needs to be rethought (and how). The upshot is that, while the support retraction offers relativism is not as strong as initially believed, appeal to retraction remains a legitimate move in the debate. In section 1, I introduce the views in the debate and clarify the phenomenon of retraction and its dialectical role. Armchair data are investigated in section 2, proper experimental studies in section 3, while section 4 summarizes and concludes. (shrink)

Crispin Wright and Filippo Ferrari have accused relativism of not accounting for “parity” – the idea that, when we argue over matters of taste, we take our opponents’ opinions to be “as good as ours” from our own, committed perspective. In this paper, I show that i) explaining parity has not been taken to be a desideratum by relativists and thus they cannot be accused of failing to fulfil a promise; ii) Wright’s and Ferrari’s reasons for claiming that parity should (...) be a desideratum are unconvincing. (shrink)

In this paper I investigate a certain contextualist answer to the problem raised for the view by the phenomenon of faultless disagreement: namely, that it cannot account for disagreement in ordinary exchanges involving predicates of personal taste. I argue that the answer investigated either misses the target, ignoring the relevant cases which the relativist challenge is based or that it has to appeal to semantic blindness, a move that has certain costs. In addition, I argue that the same holds for (...) a specific variant of contextualist view – the presuppositional view proposed by López de Sa. (shrink)

In this paper I put forward and substantiate a possible defensive move on behalf of the relativist about predicates of personal taste that can be used to block a recent contextualist argument raised against the view: the ‘argument from binding’ proposed in Schaffer (). The move consists in adopting Recanati's “variadic functions” apparatus and applying it to predicates of personal taste like ‘tasty’ and experiencer phrases like ‘for John’. I substantiate the account in a basic relativistic framework and reply to (...) several objections to the variadic-functions approach in general and to its application to the expressions at hand. (shrink)

In the debate between contextualism and relativism about predicates of taste, the challenge from disagreement (the objection that contextualism cannot account for disagreement in ordinary exchanges involving such predicates) has played a central role. This paper investigates one way of answering the challenge consisting on appeal to certain, less focused on, uses of predicates of taste. It argues that the said thread is unsatisfactory, in that it downplays certain exchanges that constitute the core disagreement data. Additionally, several arguments to the (...) effect that the exchanges in question don’t amount to disagreement are considered and rejected. (shrink)

Theoria, Volume 87, Issue 5, Page 1322-1341, October 2021.

The paper is concerned with the semantics of knowledge attributions(K-claims, for short) and proposes a position holding that K-claims are contextsensitive that differs from extant views on the market. First I lay down the data a semantic theory for K-claims needs to explain. Next I present and assess three views purporting to give the semantics for K-claims: contextualism, subject-sensitive invariantism and relativism. All three views are found wanting with respect to their accounting for the data. I then propose a hybrid (...) view according to which the relevant epistemic standards for evaluating K-claims are neither those at the context of the subject (subject-sensitive invariantism), nor those at the context of the assessor (relativism), but it is itself an open matter. However, given that we need a principled way of deciding which epistemic standards are the relevant ones, I provide a principle according to which the relevant standards are those that are the highest between those at the context of the subject and those at the context of the assessor/attributor. In the end I consider some objections to the view and offer some answers. (shrink)

This is my contribution to a symposium on Berit Brogaard's book "Transient Truths" in which I criticize her treatment of various linguistic phenomena related to tense.

This book offers a sustained, interdisciplinary examination of taste. It addresses a range of topics that have been at the heart of lively debates in philosophy of language, linguistics, metaphysics, aesthetics, and experimental philosophy. Our everyday lives are suffused with discussions about taste. We are quick to offer familiar platitudes about taste, but we struggle when facing the questions that matter--what taste is, how it is related to subjectivity, what distinguishes good from bad taste, why it is valuable to make (...) and evaluate judgments about matters of taste, and what, exactly, we mean in speaking about these matters. The essays in this volume open up new, intersecting lines of research about these questions that cross traditional disciplinary boundaries. They address the notion of aesthetic taste; connections between taste and the natures of truth, disagreement, assertion, belief, retraction, linguistic context-sensitivity, and the semantics/pragmatics interface; experimental inquiry about taste; and metaphysical questions underlying ongoing discussions about taste. Perspectives on Taste will be of interest to researchers and advanced students working in aesthetics, philosophy of language, linguistics, metaphysics, and experimental philosophy. (shrink)

In the debate between relativism and contextualism about various expressions, the Operator Argument, initially proposed by Kaplan , has been taken to support relativism. However, one widespread reaction against the argument has taken the form of arguing against one assumption made by Kaplan: namely, that certain natural language expressions are best treated as sentential operators. Focusing on the only extant version of the Operator Argument proposed in connection to predicates of personal taste such as “tasty” and experiencer phrases such as (...) “for Anna” ), in this paper I investigate whetherthe reasons offered by Cappelen and Hawthorne against various assumptions of the argument failing in the case of modal, temporal, locationaland precisional expressions transfer to the case of experiencer phrases to undercut support for relativism about predicates of personal taste. My aim is to show that they don’t. Thus, I first show that their considerations against experiencer phrases such as “for Anna” being sentential operators are not decisive. Second, I show that even if granting that such experiencer phrases are not sentential operators, a suitably modified version of the Operator Argument can be defended from the objections they raise. (shrink)

In this paper, we offer a novel solution to the much discussed " answering machine puzzle " and similarly problematic cases for the Kaplanian view of temporal indexicals. The solution we propose consists in an appeal to a well-established and (for many still) useful framework: Reichenbach's theory of tense and aspect. Starting from some more recent articulations of the theory in its application to temporal adverbials, we show how it can be applied to 'now' so that to provide an easy (...) and intuitive solution to the puzzle. In addition, the proposed solution, while departing in several important respects from the Kaplanian orthodoxy, it remains conservative in that it preserves some of Kaplan's central tenets about 'now', thus making it less radical than many of the alternative solutions found in literature. (shrink)

This is the editor’s introduction to the book symposium on Jason Stanley’s influential book "How Propaganda Words" (Oxford University Press, 2015). After a few brief remarks situating the book in the landscape of current analytic philosophy, I offer a detailed presentation of each chapter of the book, in order to familiarize the reader with its main tenets and with the author’s argumentative strategy. I flag the issues that the contributors to the symposium discuss, and describe their main points. I end (...) with expressing hope that the symposium will help continue the conversation around ideology and propaganda within analytic philosophy. (shrink)

In this paper I introduce and develop an approach to tenses and temporal expressions that is a mix between eternalism and temporalism consisting in appeal to ‘variadic operators’. The type of variadic operator I will be concerned with is the expansive variadic operator, which takes as input predicates of a certain adicity and yields new predicates with one additional degree of adicity. Appeal to variadic operators has proven useful in giving the semantics of several types of expressions: adverbs ), prepositional (...) phrases ), relational terms ), etc. The focus of this paper is on tenses and temporal expressions, with the aim of showing how these are treated by appeal to temporal variadic operators. First I define the temporal variadic operator and then show how it can be used to account for simple tensed sentences. I also give a rough sketch of how it can accommodate more complex phenomena like sequence of time, interaction between tenses and temporal adverbials, temporal anaphora, later-than-matrix and double-access readings, etc. (shrink)

This is our introduction to the 50 years Anniversary Issue of The Southern Journal of Philosophy on "Relativism about Value". Contributors: Berit Brogaard, Andy Egan, Ragnar Francén Olinder, Karl Schafer, Isidora Stojanovic, Folke Tersman.

The main aim of the thesis is to give a semantic account of implicit content – the kind of content that plays a crucial role in implicit communication. Implicit communication is a species of communication in which a speaker communicates certain contents that go over and above the contents retrievable from the linguistic meaning of the words used. The focus of the thesis is a certain kind of implicit communication involving locations (when sentences such as “It is raining” are used (...) to communicate that it is raining at a certain location) and judges (when sentences such as “Avocado is tasty” are used to communicate that avocado is tasty for a certain person, called “the judge”). The way the topic of implicit content is approached is via the notion, widespread in contemporary philosophy of language, of “unarticulated constituents”. The thesis contains an investigation of this notion, with the specific aim of disentangling the many senses it has been used and of providing a general definition of the notion. A direct product of this investigation is a partitioning of the logical space; three positions are then selected, which correspond to the main contenders in the current debate involving unarticulated constituents: truth-conditional semantics, truth-conditional pragmatics and relativism. The biggest part of the thesis is dedicated to investigating certain arguments that have surfaced in the debate between these positions, with the ultimate goal of proposing a relativist account of implicit content. The particular version of relativism offered consists in the combination of the claim that locations and judges are part of the circumstances of evaluation, rather than the content of utterances, with “the variadic functions approach” to certain natural language expressions. Also, several arguments against a truth-conditional semantic approach to predicates of personal taste are provided. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore a range of existent and possible ameliorative semantic theories of gender terms: invariantism, according to which gender terms are not context-sensitive, contextualism, according to which the meaning of gender terms is established in the context of use, and relativism, according to which the meaning of gender terms is established in the context of assessment. I show that none of these views is adequate with respect to the plight of trans people to use their term of (...) choice to self-identify and be referred to accordingly. I then consider an invariantist view based on self-identification and explore some of its challenges. (shrink)

Radical relativism was born with a promise: to account for certain phenomena that opposite views are unable to explain. One example is the phenomenon of “faultless disagreement”, according to which two people, while disagreeing, are not at fault in any substantive way. The phenomena of retraction and assessments of truth in cases of eavesdropping are others. All these phenomena have been claimed to pose serious problems for rival views and be best accounted for within a radical relativistic framework. While “faultless (...) disagreement” and the notion of disagreement in general has benefited from extensive discussion in current debates over semantic content, retraction has not been in the spotlight that much. In particular, very few things have been said about what retraction exactly amounts to and how to conceive of its normative profile. This will be the focus of our paper. (shrink)

In this paper I inquire into the methodological status of one of the arguments that have figured prominently in contemporary debates about the semantics of a variety of expressions, the so-called “Binding Argument”. My inquiry is limited to the case of meteorological sentences like “It is raining”, but my conclusion can be extended to other types of sentences as well. Following Jason Stanley, I distinguish between three interpretations of the argument. My focus is on the third, weakest interpretation, according to (...) which postulating variables for locations in the logical form of meteorological sentences is the best available explanation of the binding phenomena that such sentences give rise to. My aim is to show that even in this weak interpretation, the argument cannot be reasonably taken to hold. I accomplish this by showcasing several alternative ways to account for the binding data that have not been, as of yet, ruled out as flawed. (shrink)

This is a reply to Tomas Marvan's paper "Obstacles to the Relativity of Truth", published in the same issue, in which I attempt to provide an interpretation of the relativist schema "x is true relative to y" by understanding x as ranging over propositions and y as ranging over circumstances of evaluation, as in the familiar Kaplanian picture of semantics. I then answer some of Marvan's worries and reject certain views considered relativist on the basis that they are, in fact, (...) different views in disguise. (shrink)

This short paper follows up on the exchange between Ray Buchanan and Wayne Davis concerning the theory of speaker meaning put forward by Davis in previous work. I briefly present Davis' main tenets, Buchanan's objections, Davis' replies, and then offer a new case that enforces the problem raised by Buchanan to Davis' theory for speaker meaning.

A recent view about disagreement (Karczewska 2021) takes it to consist in the tension arising from proposals and refusals of these proposals to impose certain commitments on the interlocutors in a conversation. This view has been proposed with the aim of solving the problem that “faultless disagreement” – a situation in which two interlocutors are intuited to be both in disagreement and not at fault – poses for contextualism about predicates of taste.In this paper, I consider whether this view applies (...) equally well to disagreements involving aesthetic adjectives. I show, first, that it applies quite straightforwardly to predicates like “beautiful,” which presumably generate faultless disagreement. However, aesthetic adjectives like “beautiful” don’t exhaust the aesthetic sphere. A term like “balanced,” for example, while still perspectival, is said to have a more “objective” feel and usually doesn’t generate faultless disagreement: when the novice and the expert disagree on using such a term, we take it that the expert is right and the novice is wrong. I argue that Karczewska’s view has trouble explaining this difference in the profile of the two types of aesthetic predicates vis-à-vis the generation of disagreement. I also consider possible ways of coping with this problem, but I then reject them and propose a different one that is suitable for most views in the debate. (shrink)

The paper is primarily concerned with laying out the space of positions that purport to account for semantic context sensitivity of natural language expressions and with making a prima facie case for relativism. I start with distinguishing between pre-semantic, semantic and post-semantic context sensitivity. In the following section I briefly present the classic picture of indexicals due to David Kaplan and assess some arguments for the introduction of certain parameters in the circumstances of evaluation (specifically, time). In section III I (...) envisage two views that purport to expand semantic context sensitivity beyond expressions from “the basic set”: indexicalism and contextualism. In section IV, by means of an example taken from John Perry, I draw attention to a specific form of semantic context sensitivity, namely that in which what is affected by context are the circumstances of evaluation of utterances rather than their content. The example leads to the necessity of distinguishing between two roles of context: a content-determinative one and a circumstance-determinative one. In section V I introduce relativism as the view incorporating the claim that context has a circumstance-determinative role and contrast it with the two views presented before. In the final section I analyze a certain type of argument usually adduced in favor of contextualism (the so-called “context-shifting arguments”) and show that in order to work it has to rule out relativism. I conclude by claiming that the battle must be fought by giving arguments to the effect that a certain parameter should or should not be part of the circumstances of evaluation rather than the content of utterances. (shrink)

The essay is an attempt to offer a version of conceptual relativism that escapes Donald Davidson’s decisive criticisms of the notion of “conceptual scheme”. Two variants of relativism are distinguished, a weaker and a stronger one, and a clear formulation of what a strong version amounts to is put forward. The concrete proposal involves accepting a version of alethic pluralism. After discussing alethic pluralism in general, and after exploring both strong and weak versions of it, a suitable version is presented: (...) alethic functionalism. The final part offers an illustration of how embracing alethic functionalism may help the relativist. (shrink)

In this paper I investigate certain issues that have surfaced in the debate between truth-conditional semantics and truth-conditional pragmatics about meteorological sentences like "It is raining". First, I assess two criteria for unarticulatedness pertaining to the views (the Binding Criterion and the Optionality Criterion) and argue that both fail. Then I present one of the most powerful arguments against truth-conditional pragmatics: the so-called "Binding Argument". I show how the solution offered by Francois Recanati, consisting in appeal to "variadic functions", deflects (...) the argument and that it can be adopted by a relativist abut locations too. In the end of a the paper I suggest, with focus on predicates of personal taste, that relativists about other kinds of expressions can adopt Recanati's solution to block versions of the Binding Argument directed at their view. (shrink)

Focusing on predicates of taste, this paper puts forward a novel version of relativism, motivated by a recently discussed phenomenon: perspectival plurality. After showing that the phenomenon is problematic for at least some versions of relativism and discussing several possible answers on behalf of the relativist, I put forward my own version. The main feature of the proposal is the introduction in the index not of a single parameter for perspectives, but of a (possibly infinite) sequence of such parameters. In (...) the last part of the paper, I defend the view from three objections. (shrink)

In this paper we discuss a phenomenon we call perspectival plurality, which has gone largely unnoticed in the current debate between relativism and contextualism about predicates of personal taste. According to perspectival plurality, the truth value of a sentence containing more than one PPT may depend on more than one perspective. Prima facie, the phenomenon engenders a problem for relativism and can be shaped into an argument in favor of contextualism. We explore the consequences of perspectival plurality in depth and (...) assess several possible responses on behalf of advocates of relativism. (shrink)

This paper sketches out Peirce's "theory of indeterminacy" as part of a larger "triadic" theory within the context of the semiotic. It then examines the theory of the object in his later work, emphasizing the difference between immediate and dynamical object. The role of collateral experience is discussed. Connections are drawn between Peircean indeterminacy and Kant. The relationship of the indeterminate to contradiction and excluded middle is discussed. 'Determination', 'vagueness', and 'generality' are discussed in detail in the context established in (...) this paper. (shrink)

The NHS is an institution of great importance to everybody in the UK - not only doctors, nurses and other health professionals, but also to patients, carers and their families. However, problems within the NHS are regularly reported in the media and we are all anxious about waiting lists, about whether potential illnesses will be identified treated in time, about bleeding to death on trollies in corridors or being struck down by antibiotic-resistant superbugs. This engaging book aims to explore and (...) simplify the issues from both sides of the NHS - professionals and patients - and to improve mutual understanding of the problems, which will hopefully spark an open debate about the future of health service provision. The book uses an innovative fictionalized account of the experiences of 'case study' individuals in the healthcare system, including a GP with depression, a woman with MS and a hospital manager whose wife has cancer. This book will be essential and enjoyable reading for anyone workingwithin the healthcare system, as well as patients and their families and anyone interested in the workings of the NHS. (shrink)

Humans massively depend on communication with others, but this leaves them open to the risk of being accidentally or intentionally misinformed. To ensure that, despite this risk, communication remains advantageous, humans have, we claim, a suite of cognitive mechanisms for epistemic vigilance. Here we outline this claim and consider some of the ways in which epistemic vigilance works in mental and social life by surveying issues, research and theories in different domains of philosophy, linguistics, cognitive psychology and the social sciences.